You can say what you want about Michael Moore, but love him or hate him, it's clear from his films that the man cares about the well-being of Americans.
Through his characteristic brand humor blended with biting commentary, Moore's latest film makes a provocative, hilarious and strong case for why greed is destroying our economic freedom.
Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore's follow-up to 2007's Sicko and 2004's Fahrenheit 9/11, is a piece that examines problems caused by corruption within America's capitalist culture.
The film explores the impact of corporate America on the average hardworking blue-collar American, highlighting the shocking claim that the top 1 percent of wealthy Americans collectively have more than the bottom 95 percent. Through heartbreaking character portraits and brutal attacks on the wealthy, the film emphasizes the absurdity of our economic system.
Moore has a fascinating ability to mix fact with satire and humor in a way that no other current documentary filmmaker can. Old film clips set in ancient Rome are juxtaposed with modern America to insinuate a link between now and the fall of Rome, while digs at the Bush administration feature famous shots of the former president dancing and playing volleyball. Below the belt? Yes. Effective? Even more so.
Nowhere does he do this better than while discussing the disparities between capitalist ideologies and Christian teaching. Moore takes clips of an old Bible film and overdubs Jesus' voice to have him say he can't heal someone because of a "pre-existing condition."
Moore's wit, while scathing, is laugh-out-loud funny -- enough so that my entire theater literally did. This is not the type of reaction you'd normally expect from a documentary about the economy.
As with all of Moore's films, however, he is at his best when sitting down with average Americans and creating portraits of their needless suffering, showing viewers facets of American life they never knew existed. One such interview reveals certain companies take out life insurance policies on their workers to collect after their deaths -- the deceased workers are known as "dead peasants" -- without informing their spouses. Moore's interview with one widow, whose cancer-victim husband's former employer collected more than $1 million without her ever seeing a penny, is particularly moving.
Outside of the character portraits, Moore adds in some of the characteristic antics that made him famous. Similar to his reading of the USA Patriot Act through a megaphone in an ice cream truck in Fahrenheit 9/11, he heads to Wall Street in this film to make "citizens' arrests" of bank bigwigs and wraps yellow crime scene tape around the New York Stock Exchange. The scene is both hilarious and symbolic of the mess that is our current economic status.
The movie's major flaw, is Moore's lack of an alternative. We see that he thinks capitalism does not work, but he fails to be clear on what we should do instead. He doesn't explicitly come out in favor of socialism but does not say how to effectively change capitalism to make it better. Viewers are left wondering if there really is a form of government that is actually any better.
Despite this, the documentary is both thought provoking and eye opening. The local State College crowd that laughed out loud in the theater also erupted in applause by the film's end -- whatever you think of him as a person, that is a testament to Moore's growing ability to connect with Americans.
Grade: A-
